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by hexomancer·3y ago·view on hn ↗
There was a similar post a few days ago where someone did this but instead of changing their name they changed their gender (female names got significantly more responses). That post got flagged and this post is in the frontpage. Interesting.
8 comments
Academia is full of problems like these.

This only leads to resentment and a reinforcement of the idea that women have it on 'easy mode', which I don't think is caused by them in the first place.

One day I went to interview at SiB (https://www.sib.swiss/) as part of a cohort of 20 shortlisted from all over the world. Women on our cohort were treated significantly better, with a couple weird professors were behind them all the time. Everyone noticed that (even other girls) and we actually, explicitly, touched on that subject on our free time.

I recall there was one dinner by the end of that trip and these guys made one particular girl sit in between them, which was kind of awkward as students were all sitting together in a different part of the table. One of these guys was all over the girl, to clarify: not touching her, but physically very close all the time and asking a lot of trivial questions one after the other (do you like food XXXX? have you been to XXXX? what do you think of XXXX?), the girl was visibly uncomfortable but what was she supposed to do? We were all about 20yo at that time, at that age (also a newgrad) you just go with the flow. Plenty of people take advantage of that.

Not implying anything but, as anecdata, that girl got accepted into the program under the supervision of that particular guy. I hope she had a comfortable PhD stay and I mean that with all honesty.

It's a little suspect that this reddit post from 5 days ago is almost the same as the linked tweet, but the premise is kind of switched up.

23 hours ago from the linked Twitter: "So I did an experiment, I am looking for a postdoctoral position and decided to check to what extent racism in science could be. I took my CV and changed the name to a more western one. I'd send it out with my real name, then a few days later (or before) with the western name."

5 days ago on this linked Reddit: "So I did an experiment, I work in CS and decided to test what gender bias is. So I took my CV and changed the name to a female name. I'd send it out with my real name, then a few days later (or a few days before) with a female name."

He acknowledged his wording was taken directly from the story, then immediately deleted his acknowledgment: https://twitter.com/tracewoodgrains/status/15716306207442452...
I submitted this story, but I agree the wording is very suspicious.
I haven't flagged either that post or this one, but I understand why people do. Both present useless anecdotes that tell us nothing about whether or not a systemic problem exists.
Honestly, they tell us even less, because tons of these anecdotes are simply fabricated.
Not commenting on that post because I didn’t see it but just noting. Some people support affirmative action. There are arguments that can be used that are somewhat convincing. Correcting generational feedback loops is hard and may require more than just blind indifference. Personally I think affirmative action can go too far, but it is very much a live issue in politics for good reason. Meanwhile there aren’t many who would say discrimination against people from the Middle East is good
Well, there's a difference between supporting something, and trying to actively shut down any discussion revealing arguments against it.

The best solutions are always compromises born in debates between disagreeing sides. With one side endlessly silencing anything that doesn't go with their narrative, we won't see that happening anymore.

  > Meanwhile there aren’t many who would say discrimination against
  > people from the Middle East is good
You assumed that the poster was from the Middle East by the name Mohammed. But his name, accounting for spelling variations, is the most popular male name in Britain for well over a decade.
> You assumed that the poster was from the Middle East by the name Mohammed.

His Twitter profile said immigrant and had the flag of Lebanon after.

In addition to what pseudalopex said I was figuring the thing to think about was what the people evaluating him would assume, not anything true or false about him. Just like say a trans man may still experience sexism aimed at women
Any chance you can find the link to the dead post? I am curious to see it.
Can't find the hackernews post (probably got removed) but it was a link to this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xcrv6k/i_sent_1...
In general, I do not think flagged posts get removed (I have access to multiple such posts). But they probably are not listed in the search indices, only available with a direct link (e.g. from your comment history if you commented there).
If you are past a modest karma speedbump, anyone can hit flag. It right next to the upvote button.

Those articles are not [dead] but the algorithm penalizes them when ranking the front page.

I didn't comment.
The post referenced:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32880510

As the comments show, the submission had other issues.

This is not the post I was referencing. It was a link to this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xcrv6k/i_sent_1...
Dang! That’s interesting. Just give this post time.
Do you know why the other post was flagged?
Flagging is done by the community. Anyone with the karma can hit the flag button.
It was a reddit thread with a baity title on a guaranteed flamewar topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32823355

Maybe if posts like that were not flagged, the topic would be less of a flamewar
I don't think that's how flamewars work.